Life Between the Cons

The Creatures, Crimes & Creativity (C3) Con is over but that doesn't mean the work is over. In the military we called the next step a hot wash. It's that meeting where you go over everything you did during an operation, critique your actions and the results, and make decisions about what you could do better next time. Which panels were hits and which were misses? How should those panels run? (It's clear now that panels do need moderators.) What started too soon, or ran too late? Were the name tags the right size? How was the food? There are so many details involved in making a 3-day Con happen.

Once the decision was made to do it again next year, we had to confirm a venue, and dates. We're on the hunt for keynote speakers and local guests. We have panels to choose and a menu to put together. Not to mention all the work involved in turning last year's web site into this year's web site. We even decided to set up a Facebook page to make it easier for people to give us suggestions and keep up with Con happenings thru the year.

This year there are only ten days between the Con Intrigue Publishing puts on and one that we all attend - Bouchercon. That involves preperation too. Thursday through Sunday we'll be fishing for C3 keynote speakers and attendees among the 1,000 authors, fans, publishers, reviewers, booksellers and editors who will be in Raleigh NC for that 4-day event. We must go over the schedule to figure out which panels we'll get the most out of (7 at a time over 4 day!) Plus I'm on a panel Friday. It's called "Research: Alcohol, Drugs, Weapons & the Psychology of the Insane." As you might guess, that calls for a little research itself, so more prep.

Plus, I'm promoting my novel that willt be released next month, Intrigue's anthology that will be released in December, rewriting my next novel, and there's the usual day-to-day business of running a publishing company.

So it's a very full life in between the two Cons. But I'm not complaining. It's like the working space between two great vacations!   

One Week Before the Creatures, Crimes & Creativity Con

For me, publishing and even writing take a back seat for the next week while we gear up to present The Creatures, Crimes & Creativity Con is a great chance to spend a weekend with fans and authors of mystery, suspense, thriller, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and paranormal fiction. For some of us, that’s enough to prompt us to attend, but for you others I’ll count down a dozen more good reasons.
the Mid-Atlantic's coolest literary event of the year.

Reason #1 to register for the Creatures, Crimes & Creativity con today: HEATHER GRAHAM! The ITW’s 2016 Thrillmaster and author of more than 150 novels and novellas gives the keynote address at Saturday dinner.  Later she’ll also give a discussion later, explaining how she has managed to balance real life with her wildly successful writing career.

 

Reason #2 to register for the C3 Con: F. PAUL WILSON will give Friday night’s keynote talk. This NY Times bestseller and creator of the Repairman Jack series has written horror, thrillers, mysteries, science fiction, Young Adult stories and a few works that defy categorization. In a class at the C3 Con he’ll shares how he is able to shift genre, what he has to do differently, and how he decides what he’s writing next.

Reason #3 to register: ANDY STRAKA: Six books into his Frank Pavlicek series, he continues to present a Private Eye who is at once traditional and totally unique. I’ll interview him at Saturday lunch and in a separate class he’ll explain the ins-and-outs of writing detective fiction, and how he decides when to stick with the conventions of his sub-genre and when to throw them out the window.

Reason #4: S.D. SKYE: a former Intelligence Operations Specialist/Analyst in the FBI's counterintelligence program, senior intelligence analyst with the DIA, Coast Guard Intelligence, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. She’ll be interviewed at Sunday breakfast, then she’ll give a class telling fellow authors how to write realistically about intelligence and law enforcement – and telling readers how to spot when a writer is just making it up.

Reason #5: John French (crime scene supervisor with the Baltimore Police Department Crime Laboratory) and Dana Kollmann (C.S.I. for the Baltimore County Police Department) will give a team presentation on their expertise and take questions... no matter how weird.

Reason #6: Enjoy 28 panels and presentations of interest to readers, fans and writers.

Reason #7: One lucky attendee will win a new Kindle Fire in our Twitter contest for the most tweets using our hashtag #MdC3Con.

Reason #8: The registration fee includes five meals: Friday’s dinner, 3 meals Saturday and Sunday breakfast. Readers and writers dine side-by-side! (ask those questions you’ve always wanted to ask!)

Reason #9: Every attendee receives a goody bag that contains, among other cool stuff, a copy of this year’s C3 Anthology, our annual collectors’ item collection of short stories contributed by authors in attendance.

Reason #10: authors get to spend time with their fans, and to expose new readers to their writing by presenting on panels.

Reason #11: Registered authors’ books will be available in the on-site bookstore and there will be two giant book signings.

Reason :12: All attending authors are posted on the C3 web site and will be pictured in the C3 program

AND IF YOU DON’T WANT TO REGISTER you can still meet all the authors and get signed novels at the Mid-Atlantic’s biggest book signings. The Creatures, Crimes & Creativity Con hosts two book signing events – both free and open to the public. Get novels signed by Heather Graham, F. Paul Wilson, and 30+ other authors. Grow your collection of mystery, thriller, suspense, horror, sci-fi, fantasy and paranormal fiction with signed copies. That’s Friday and Saturday from 5pm to 6pm

It all happens at the Hunt Valley Inn, 245 Shawan Rd, Hunt Valley, MD. Want more details? They’re all on the C3 website – http://creaturescrimesandcreativity.com